


tell us what's wrong [and what's right]

by crickets



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-28
Updated: 2010-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:11:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets





	tell us what's wrong [and what's right]

_This is how it should have happened._

"Priya," Topher says her real name in the light of day. Road stretches out before them and behind them and he can't remember how many days -- weeks -- it's been. Priya shifts in her spot next to him in the passenger side of the pick-up truck they've been riding in for the last few days. Topher paid cash, handing the wad over to a sweaty used car salesman in a cheap suit who grinned and offered them a complimentary pine-scented air freshener. Topher and Priya had been his very favorite people that day.

 _Rossum had kept Topher very well for all the sins he committed._ His bank account cleaned out, and they could ride forever if they needed to.

Priya stretches her arms out in front of her, groans.

"Did I fall asleep?" she asks.

"For a little while," Topher says. And the words just fall from his mouth like they've been implanted and he feels a twist in his gut when they do.

She smiles.

 _Damn_.

\--

There's something to be said about proximity, because Priya ends up curling next to him in bed most nights and truth is Topher can't remember the last time she didn't. He can't remember a lot of things these days: the last time he had a good shave, the sound of Adelle's voice in his ear warning him about getting too attached, telling him that fraternization is strictly prohibited. When Priya wraps herself around him underneath the scratchy motel sheets, all of that is lost. Sometimes he even forgets that she's a real person now, someone capable of making her own decisions.

"This is a bad idea," he'll whisper into her ear during those moments, his lips grazing skin.

Priya will just shake her head, kiss him, let her hand travel further down his body.

Topher will let her. He'll move against her and wish that he could feel less guilty about it, he'll come frantic and rough inside her when he hears his own name on her lips. He only whispers the words _I'm sorry_ in his own head now, instead of out loud like before.

 _I'm sorry_. It rings clear in his mind.

Over and over, just as the rush of a wave, the burden of Sisyphus.

Priya will kiss away his tears, shush him, though he says not a word, tell him she forgives him.

\--

In the morning, she'll tell him she trusts him. She'll tell him that he's the only person that had the guts to set her free, to get her away from that place.

"You unchained me," she says.

"No," Topher says. "No." But he doesn't say he was also the one who chained her in the first place. She knows that all already. She knows everything because he's told her every detail, from coast to coast, across the Canadian border and back again. He shared with her every story, the good, the bad, the unthinkable. He's told her of innocents, and evil men, and evil deeds. And she had listened and held his hand and offered him forgiveness.

" _Yes_ ," she insists. "You did."

\--

 _It's his birthday._

It's his birthday and he just wants the sun to go down.

They stop at this little coastal town to get something to eat. They choose a small diner because Priya has this _thing_ for breakfast at dinner time. After, she excuses herself, says she's got to pick up some sundry from the local store and disappears down the street. She's gone long enough so that Topher's coffee gets cold and he starts to wonder whether or not she'll ever come back. Secretly, he thinks it might be better if she doesn't.

 _It would be a fitting punishment for this particular day._

But, of course, a little while later, when she appears to the sound of bells at the diner door, Topher is relieved.

"Thought you might have skipped out on me," he tells her.

Priya gives him a half-frown.

"Don't you trust me?" she asks.

"With my life," he tells her. And this isn't some script he's memorized, some role that's been implanted.

 _This is the truth._

"Good," she says, and from behind her back she reveals snack cake with a single lit candle stuck in its center. "Happy birthday," she tells him. "It's not quite right, but I've got water pistols in the car too."

He smiles. Now this is a story he remembers telling her many times. Not for any other reason than she kept asking him to repeat it. It had been painful at the time and he didn't understand why she had been so insistent, but now he realizes that she was just trying to remember. To get the details right. _For him_.

 _Topher blows out the candle._

 _-fin_


End file.
